Gov. Paul LePage continues to support Bill Beardsley and has gone to great lengths to keep him in charge of the Department of Education. He does this in spite of his often-stated commitment to our constitutional principles of separation of powers and checks and balances.
LePage complains of what he says is a rejection of Beardsley by Democrats in the state Legislature, but Republicans have also spoken out, including Rep. Paul Stearns, R-Guilford, who says he is “disappointed and puzzled” by LePage’s actions and Rep. Norman Higgins, R-Dover Foxcroft, who says he’ll introduce legislation to take the ability to nominate the education commissioner away from the governor.
In standing by Beardsley, LePage also refuses to heed some of the comments in a letter from his own appointees on the State Board of Education. They wrote in January that Beardsley (a recent colleague of theirs on the board) lacks experience in K-12 education, “needs to be more succinct and understandable in his public communication,” and has a potential weakness as a “big idea” person at a time when “huge changes” aren’t in order.
More importantly, though, in supporting Beardsley at all costs, LePage apparently dismisses a 2012 investigation and report by his own Maine State Police into whether Beardsley had knowledge of and, by law, should have reported suspicions that the Rev. Robert Carlson, the chaplain at Husson College, where Beardsley was then president, had engaged in illegal activities with underage boys.
At a town hall event in Bangor last month, LePage said of Beardsley, “They [Democrats] come and say that some pedophile Carlson, he knew about it. He did not. And I’m comfortable with his answer.”
When the state Senate confirmed Beardsley’s nomination to the State Board of Education in 2012 in a party-line vote, LePage said in a written statement that “Democrats clearly do not understand the facts as they relate to the Carlson case,” but many public statements by Democrats at the time came right from the s
state police report on the Carlson case, often verbatim.
When LePage says that he believes Beardsley’s denials of any knowledge of Carlson’s wrongdoing dating back to 2005, he is also dismissing the credibility of the Maine State Police, who investigated and reported on the case, listing at least four people who say that they brought suspicions to Beardsley. The professional men and women of the state police deserve better from their leader.
Here some key considerations in the case:
Eight months passed before Beardsley would meet with state police investigators. State police first tried to speak with Beardsley in November 2011, and Beardsley, then the commissioner of conservation, at first declined. In July 2012, investigators interviewed Beardsley, but only with a lawyer present. The stonewalling and the presence of a lawyer certainly erode any “believability” a person might expect.
Beardsley didn’t ban Carlson from the Husson campus as he claimed. When the scandal first broke, Beardsley said, “When I accepted [his resignation], I basically told him he shouldn’t be on our campus.” When later confronted with photographic evidence proving Carlson participated in campus events until as much as four years later, Beardsley said he didn’t remember what exactly he said.
Beardsley should have taken Carlson’s resignation as “suspicion” of wrongdoing. As any school employee in Maine knows, Maine’s Child Protection Act states that all school officials “shall immediately report or cause a report to be made … when the person knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that a child has been or is likely to be abused.” If Beardsley had no suspicions, why did he tell Carlson he shouldn’t be on campus?
LePage, in steadfastly supporting Beardsley, has shown callous disregard for members of his own party, the comments of the State Board of Education and the work of his own state police. He has done this so he can defend a single person who has acted in a way that defies credibility. This is very unfortunate.
We deserve much better from our chief executive.
Bob McEvoy is a (mostly) retired educator who lives in Camden.